Just need 49 more for my free jump rope!

Got arguably my rarest card in my collection in the mail today. It's of one of my favorite all-time Red Sox players, Forrest "Hick" Cady. Forrest Cady was a backup catcher for several seasons for the Red Sox, who played on 3 of their World Championship teams. He was the preferred catcher of the great Smokey Joe Wood, and was said to be one of the only catchers who could throw out the legendary Ty Cobb.

I'll show the scans then tell a little bit about the set:

(Love the pose, and also how stiff he looks lol)

(Lawrence, MA! Not really close to where I lived - hour fifteen mins away - but it's really cool to own a card with an ad back for a MA company. The interesting part of this ad is that you only had to 'show' that you owned 50 of these cards, most promotions like that back in the day required that you actually mailed them in. So keep on the lookout for 49 more because I could use a new jump rope! )

(Cady PC......really wish he was in more sets!!! If only he played in the majors a year or two earlier....)

So a little background on the set, bear with me I'm still researching the set as well. Apparently a Chicago based publisher named Felix Mendelsohn printed and distributed sets and sheets of M101-4 and M101-5 (all had blank backs) through the Chicago Examiner in 1916 to the public, M101-5 was printed first and M101-4 a couple months later - both have similar checklists, but there are some additions/subtractions to each. Mendelsohn sold a large amount of sets to varying businesses who then used the cards as promotional items with their company name/logo/promos,etc. on the backs. Most of the companies only used a portion of the players in their sets, and quite a few using players from both the M101-4 and M101-5 sets. The rarity of some of these company backs vary on how they were distributed. The more common ad backs are: The Sporting News (distributed by a national newspaper), Famous & Barr (clothes store), and Weil Baking. My Morehouse Baking example is extremely tough to find, by looking at pop reports on SGC/PSA - SGC has graded 49 TOTAL [all players] and PSA has graded only 26 TOTAL [all players] - My Cady being the only one graded by either company. Even if you triple up those graded numbers, you still only get slightly over 200 total, and this is from a company who was 1 of 2 companies who used the entire checklist from the M101-4/5 sets. And yet, there are still a handful of ad backs that are more rare than Morehouse, with less than 50 total examples known (Mall Theatre being one of them). If you guys are interested in the scarcity of these ad backs, check out this LINK with some solid research on the set.

So yeah, now that I've bored you all I guess the skinny of it is that I really like this set....the photos on these cards are incredible, and some really great players, tons of HOFers - Babe Ruths RC, and I like how they have the position listed on the card too. I think an ad back run would be insanely cool, but might actually be impossible to do.

Anyways thanks for looking and letting me ramble a bit, I get excited with these 100 year old cards if you couldn't tell.

I love this kind of stuff. Makes me want to go work on my T206 set some more.

Awesome, what T206 set are you working on...."The Monster" or a team set, etc?? Curious how far along you are and if you have pics I'd love to see your progress!

Originally Posted by Doerrcollector

Awesome Scotty! Those are amazing!

At first glance they strike me as similar to the Standard Biscuits cards a little bit. Going back now to read the link-love the backstory on all these things!

Thanks,
Jeff

Thanks Jeff, definitely one of my favorite sets of all time. A lot of people are familiar with the T206 backs, but many less so with the M101-4/5 series. I wish they were more readily available, but that would take the fun out of it, huh?

Standard Biscuit put out a set of M101-4/5 in 1916, then put out a very similar set in 1917 (larger than the M101-4s) and then again in 1921. All have the same ad back, I believe....and they are classified as D350-1, D350-2, and D350-3, respectively.

BostonRed Sox2013WorldChampions! #BostonStrong-Thanks to JBel4331 for the sig

Great collection. I love the idea of collecting obscure guys from back then, the wide range of regional and food sets. I wanted to collect Moe Berg for a long time, and one of the appeals was having to track down all these cards with Burdick designations. However, while he's an obscure player he's not an obscure person, and even back in the mid-90s he wasn't cheap. That was pre-internet so merely finding them was a challenge, then paying the price was another.

The jump rope premium is awesome. That reminds me of something. Wasn't there something recently where a guy jokingly mentioned redeeming one of those things on the back of a 50s Bowman card, like a baseball glove, and Topps actually sent him a glove?

Great collection. I love the idea of collecting obscure guys from back then, the wide range of regional and food sets. I wanted to collect Moe Berg for a long time, and one of the appeals was having to track down all these cards with Burdick designations. However, while he's an obscure player he's not an obscure person, and even back in the mid-90s he wasn't cheap. That was pre-internet so merely finding them was a challenge, then paying the price was another.

The jump rope premium is awesome. That reminds me of something. Wasn't there something recently where a guy jokingly mentioned redeeming one of those things on the back of a 50s Bowman card, like a baseball glove, and Topps actually sent him a glove?

Moe Berg was definitely a fascinating person, his card prices seem to reflect that too, sadly. If you did decide to collect an obscure player from the pre-war era you could always see who was born in your home state and pick one who played in the era you would want to collect. VCP is great for getting card checklists of pre-war players, so you can see what's available.

That's awesome about the promo if true...and if it didn't have an expiration date on it, then it's still fair game right?

Originally Posted by Lancemountain

Great pickup! Nice PC too!

Thanks for the kind words! There is a M101-4 Cady with 'The Globe' ad on the back currently on ebay...but definitely not worth $430. I wish there were more actions on vintage cards and less BINs.

Originally Posted by 1998 SPx

Every now and then I let "The Monster" smack me around. I've got about a hundred cards, mostly PSA 4s, with a fair amount of Hall of Famers and Southern Leaguers.

Very cool! Definitely is a great set to 'peck away' at over time. Any rare backs on them?

BostonRed Sox2013WorldChampions! #BostonStrong-Thanks to JBel4331 for the sig

Awesome, what T206 set are you working on...."The Monster" or a team set, etc?? Curious how far along you are and if you have pics I'd love to see your progress!

Thanks Jeff, definitely one of my favorite sets of all time. A lot of people are familiar with the T206 backs, but many less so with the M101-4/5 series. I wish they were more readily available, but that would take the fun out of it, huh?

Standard Biscuit put out a set of M101-4/5 in 1916, then put out a very similar set in 1917 (larger than the M101-4s) and then again in 1921. All have the same ad back, I believe....and they are classified as D350-1, D350-2, and D350-3, respectively.

Yeah they are extremely tough. Never seen a live one of my guy Beals Becker. Unfortunately he's also a short print in the set. The article you posted was fascinating and great info.